System and method for delivering an inbound fax from a server to a user as each page is received

ABSTRACT

A method for delivering a fax to a fax recipient includes receiving a multipage fax transmitted at a fax server. As each page of a multipage fax is received, a page event notification is generated. Each page of the multipage fax file is converted into a corresponding page file. A page complete notification is generated upon completion of conversion of each page of the multipage fax file into the page file. Access is enabled to the page file of the multipage fax file responsive to receipt of the page complete notification associated with the page file. Access to the page file is enabled while subsequent pages of the multipage fax are being received and converted to the associated fax file.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a Continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/547,286, filed Aug. 21, 2019, entitled SYSTEM AND METHOD FORDELIVERING AN INBOUND FAX FROM A SERVER TO A USER AS EACH PAGE ISRECEIVED, issuing as U.S. Pat. No. 11,140,280 on Oct. 5, 2021, thespecification of which is incorporated herein in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to fax transmissions, and moreparticularly, to providing access to fax transmissions at a faxrecipient on a page by page basis.

BACKGROUND

Fax transmissions have long been a manner for providing the ability totransmit documents from one location to another. A fax transmissionscans a document at a first location and transmits it from thetransmitting location to a receiving location. The received document isreconstituted into a viewable format that may be accessed and reviewedby the fax recipient. Modern fax servers and services do not provide afax recipient with access to the fax pages until the entire transmittedfax file has been received. In certain situations, this delay in theability to view the fax can create losses of business opportunity. Thus,there has arisen a need for the ability to more quickly view theindividual pages in a fax transmission than are available using currenttechnologies.

SUMMARY

The present invention, as disclosed and described herein, in one aspectthereof, comprises a method for delivering a fax to a fax recipient andincludes receiving a multipage fax transmitted at a fax server. As eachpage of a multipage fax is received, a page event notification isgenerated. Each page of the multipage fax is received in a multipage faxfile and converted into a corresponding page file. A page completenotification is generated upon completion of conversion of each page ofthe multipage fax file into the corresponding page file. Access isenabled to the page file of the multipage fax file responsive to receiptof the page complete notification associated with the page file. Accessto the page file is enabled while subsequent pages of the multipage faxare being received and converted to the associated fax file.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a more complete understanding, reference is now made to thefollowing description taken in conjunction with the accompanyingDrawings, in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates a system for the delivery of a facsimile document toa fax recipient;

FIG. 2 illustrates the manner in which a fax may be transmitted tomultiple fax recipients in multiple medical treatment environments;

FIG. 3 illustrates a general block diagram of the improved method forthe delivery of a facsimile document to a fax recipient, enablingindividual page viewing by a fax recipient;

FIG. 4 illustrates a flow diagram of the method for the delivery of afacsimile document to a fax recipient, enabling individual page viewingby a fax recipient;

FIG. 5 illustrates a more detailed block diagram of the facsimiledelivery system, enabling individual page viewing by a fax recipient;

FIG. 6 illustrates the fax controller general functionalities;

FIG. 7 illustrates fax files as processed by the fax server and pagefiles as processed by the fax controller;

FIG. 8 illustrates the various signaling messages transmitted by the faxcontroller to the fax application;

FIG. 9 illustrates the media records stored for a received fax by thefax application;

FIG. 10 illustrates a flow diagram of the fax processing by the faxserver under control of the fax controller;

FIG. 11 illustrates a flow diagram of the fax page processing by the faxcontroller;

FIG. 12 illustrates a flow diagram of the fax complete processing by thefax controller;

FIG. 13 illustrates a method for extracting a single fax page from amultipage fax file;

FIG. 14 illustrates a flow diagram of the page complete processing bythe fax application;

FIG. 15 illustrates a flow diagram of the fax complete processing by thefax application; and

FIG. 16 illustrates an alternate method for extracting an individualpage from a multipage fax file into a page file.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Referring now to the drawings, wherein like reference numbers are usedherein to designate like elements throughout, the various views andembodiments of system and method for transmitting faxes to a receiver ona page by page basis are illustrated and described, and other possibleembodiments are described. The figures are not necessarily drawn toscale, and in some instances, the drawings have been exaggerated and/orsimplified in places for illustrative purposes only. One of ordinaryskill in the art will appreciate the many possible applications andvariations based on the following examples of possible embodiments.

Referring now to FIG. 1, there is generally illustrated the currenttechnique for delivering an inbound facsimile (fax) to a recipient. Anincoming fax 102 is received at a fax server 104. The fax server 104 maycomprise hardware and/or software that is configured for thetransmission of faxes from one location to another. The fax server 104delivers the entire fax 106 from the fax server to the fax recipient108. Since the entire fax 106 is delivered, the fax recipient 108 isunable to review individual pages of the delivered fax 106 until theentire fax has been received at the fax recipient 108. In manysituations, this would not present a problem. However, certainsituations may arise wherein the delivery of the fax 106 from the faxserver 104 to the fax recipient 108 may need to be viewed in a timelyfashion due to outside constraints.

Referring now to FIG. 2, there is illustrated an example of a scenariofor sending a document 202 to multiple fax recipients 206 in a medicaltreatment situation. In a situation where a patient is being treated,for example, by an urgent care facility, and the urgent care facility isunable to provide a particular service to the patient, there is a needto transfer the patient to an outside facility. In order to carry outthis process, the urgent care facility transmits faxes to multipledifferent healthcare providers that provide the necessary medicalservice. This is illustrated with the document 202 being provided to afax server 204 associated with the urgent care facility. The fax server204 transmits multiple outbound faxes 208 to different fax recipients206. Each of the facsimile transmissions to the fax recipients containsthe same information in the same number of pages. If each fax recipient206 must wait until they have received the entire fax before they canview and respond to the material within the fax, a great deal of time islost in transmitting the fax information to the fax recipient. Manytimes, the information transmitted to the differing healthcare providersproviding the additional medical service includes an entire patient filecomprising a large number of pages. However, the information required bythe healthcare provider, in order to determine whether to take thepatient from the urgent care facility, resides in the first few pages ofthe fax. Thus, requiring the healthcare provider to wait until theentire fax is received in order to view the first few pages of thedocument, enabling a decision to be made on whether to accept thepatient, causes a great amount of delay. Thus, some manner for viewingthe initial pages of a facsimile transmission, even while the remainingpages of the facsimile transmission are being received, would be greatlybeneficial to a fax recipient who may need to make a decision quickly onwhether or not to accept the patient. While the above description hasbeen made with respect to the accepting of patients by healthcareproviders from urgent care facilities, the system is applicable in anysituation wherein facsimiles containing many pages are transmitted to afax recipient and the fax recipient requires only the first few pages inorder to make a decision based upon a fax transmission or where multiplefax recipients compete for business based upon fax transmissions.

Referring now to FIGS. 3 and 4, there are illustrated a manner foraddressing the issues referenced with respect to FIG. 2 using a systemenabling a fax recipient to access individual pages of a fax before theentire fax transmission is completed. The incoming fax 302 istransmitted to a fax server 304 in a manner similar to that describedhereinabove. However, the fax server 304 is under control of a faxcontroller 306 that controls the manner in which information isdelivered from the fax server 304 to the fax recipient 310. In thiscase, the fax controller 306 sends multiple page files to the faxapplication 308, and each page file is associated with an individualpage of the fax transmission. This is distinct from the previous mannerof delivery by the fax server wherein a single fax file would includeall of the pages of the facsimile transmission and an individual pagecould not be viewed until the entire facsimile transmission had beenreceived. By delivering multiple page files from the fax server 304 tothe fax application 308, the fax recipient 310 can view each individualpage of the facsimile transmission as it is received rather than havingto wait until the entire facsimile transmission has been received as asingle fax file.

This process is more fully illustrated in the flow diagram of FIG. 4.The incoming facsimile transmission 302 is received by the fax server304 at step 402. The fax server 304 notifies the fax controller 306 thata page has arrived at step 403. The fax controller 306 generates thefirst page file of the facsimile transmission and delivers the firstpage file to the fax application 308 at step 404. The fax application308 makes the first page available to recipient 310 at step 406 andsends a notification at step 408 to the fax recipient 310 that notifiesthe recipient of delivery of the first page. Meanwhile, the remainder ofthe facsimile transmission is being received by the fax server 304. Thepage files associated with the remaining pages of the facsimiletransmission are received at step 410 from the fax server 304 undercontrol of the fax controller 306. The fax application 308 makes theseadditional pages available to the recipient 310 at step 412, as they arereceived. Finally, the fax application 308 notifies the recipient ofcompletion of all pages of the fax transmission at step 416.

Referring now to FIG. 5, there is provided a more detailed diagram ofthe system for delivering facsimile transmissions to a recipient on apage by page basis. The system includes a fax server 506 connected to atelecommunications network 502 that may comprise a cellular telephonenetwork, public switched telephone network or any other type oftelecommunications network. The fax application 514 comprises variousfunctions that process and display information with respect to areceived facsimile transmission on behalf of a particular user 520. Theprocess is initiated by an incoming fax 504 transmitted to a fax server506 over a telecommunications network 502.

The fax server 506 may comprise a hardware and/or software implementedcomponent that receives the incoming fax 504 and converts it to a faxfile suitable for delivery to the fax controller 510. The fax server 506operation is controlled by the fax controller 510. The fax controller510 comprises a software controller that responds to signals from thefax server 506, in order to convert an incoming fax 504 into multipleseparate page files, each associated with an individual page of theentire fax document being delivered. The fax file storage 508 is usedfor storing the incoming fax 504 that is received by the fax server 506.The fax file storage 508 may comprise a database, file, memory, objector server medium or system, or any other suitable storage medium orsystem. The fax file storage 508 is used for storing the single fax fileof the entire fax document that is being received and converted by thefax server 506 with respect to the incoming fax 504.

The fax controller 510 provides a number of control functionalities forthe fax server 506 as more fully illustrated in FIG. 6. The faxcontroller 510 includes functionality to identify a page event 602. Apage event comprises an indication from the fax server 506 that the endof a fax page has been reached. Upon detection of the page event 602,the fax controller 510 accesses the multipage fax file stored by the faxserver 506 within the fax file storage 508 and creates a new page filewithin the page file storage 512. The page file storage 512 may comprisea database, file, memory, object or server medium or system, or anyother suitable storage medium or system. After page file creation 606,the fax controller 510 generates and transmits a page completenotification 608 to the fax application 514. The fax controller 510 alsoincludes functionality to identify a fax complete event 604, whichidentifies the completion of the entire fax transmission by the faxserver 506. Upon detection of the fax complete event 604, the faxcontroller 510 generates and transmits a fax complete notification 610to the fax application 514.

The page file creation 606 functionality enables the creation of a pagefile on a page by page basis for each page of the fax transmission. Thepage file creation 606 functionality analyzes the fax file of the entirefax within the fax file storage 508 and creates a page file for eachpage of the fax transmission therefrom by extracting only that portionof the fax file stored within the fax file storage 508 that isassociated with a particular page. The page file is stored within thepage file storage 512 for each of the individual pages until they aredelivered to the fax application 514. Referring now also to FIG. 7,there is illustrated the fax files 702 as stored within the fax filestorage 508 associated with entire fax transmissions and the page files704 extracted from individual fax files 706 and stored within the pagefile storage 512. The fax files 702 include a plurality of fax files706, each associated with a different fax transmission. These aredenoted in FIG. 7 as Fax 1, Fax 2 and Fax 3. Each of the fax files 706have included therein multiple pages 708 going from Page 1 to Page n,which comprises the last page of the fax. The page file creation 606functionality of the fax controller 510 responds to the page event 602notification from the fax server 506, in order to access the individualfax file 706 associated with a particular fax and generates a separatepage complete notification for each page 708 of the fax, afterextracting the portion of the fax file 706 associated with an individualdocument page. Thus, the page file storage 512 containing the page files704 will include multiple independent page files 710. Each of theindividual page files 710 is associated with a single fax and a singlepage of the single fax. Thus, page file 710 a comprises a page file ofFax 1, Page 1; page file 710 b comprises a page file of Fax 2, Page 1;page file 710 c comprises a page file of Fax 2, Page 2; etc. Thus, thefax file storage 508 and the page file storage 512 store differentrepresentations of the facsimile transmissions, where the fax filestorage 508 stores a single fax file of the entire facsimiletransmission and the page file storage 512 stores multiple page files,each associated with an individual page of the facsimile transmission asextracted from the associated fax file within the fax file storage 508.

Referring now back to FIG. 6, the fax controller 510 additionallyincludes both page complete notification 608 functionality and faxcomplete notification 610 functionality. The fax controller 510 sends apage complete notification 608 to the fax application 514, which makesthe page available to the user 520. The fax application 514 alsonotifies the user 520 of the availability of the first page and theability to access the first page of the fax transmission. In alternativeembodiments, the fax application 514 may also notify the user 520 of thereceipt of any particular page number or page numbers of the faxtransmission and the ability of the user to access each of the faxtransmission pages up to the page indicated by the notification providedby the fax application. Referring now more particularly to FIG. 8, thereare illustrated various types of notification that may be transmittedfrom the fax controller 510 to the fax application 514. As showngenerally at 802, the fax controller 510 may transmit an initial faxpage indication “Fax Incoming (Page 1)” 804 to the fax application 514.The Fax Incoming (Page 1) 804 indication notifies the fax application514 that the first page of the fax transmission is available todownload. The fax controller 510 also may transmit as shown generally at806 the “Fax Progress (Page n)” 808 indication to the fax application514 for each page after the first page of the fax transmission. Thus,the Fax Progress (Page n) 808 indication would be sent for each page ofthe fax transmission from the second page to the last page. Finally, asshown generally at 810, the “Fax Progress (Page 0)” 812 provides anindication that the fax transmission has been completed and that nofurther pages are available for download.

Referring now back to FIG. 5, the signals generated by the fax server506 under control of the fax controller 510 are transmitted over a datacommunications network to the fax application 514. The signalstransmitted to the fax application 514 comprise the status messages suchas those described hereinabove with respect to FIG. 8 and the individualpage files stored within the page file storage 512. Upon receiving apage complete notification, the fax application 514 downloads theappropriate page file from the page file storage 512, stores a copy ofthe page file within the media storage 516 and renders the page fileinto a format suitable for viewing by the user 520. The media storage516 may comprise a database, file, memory, object or server medium orsystem, or any other suitable storage medium or system. Optionally, thefax application may resize the rendered image to new dimensions, if sorequested by the user 520. Resizing is not required. When a page file isstored within the media storage 516, an entry is made in a media record532 stored within the application database 518. The storage of therendered/resized image files within the media storage 516 and thecreation of media records 532 within the application database 518 arecontrolled by the fax application 514.

Referring now to FIG. 9, there is more fully illustrated the structureof the media records 532 stored within the application database 518. Thefax application 514 creates media records 532 within the applicationdatabase 518. FIG. 9 illustrates the media records 532 that have beencreated for a particular facsimile transmission. The media records 532will consist of multiple documents labeled as Doc 1 through Doc n. Eachof the documents Doc 1 through Doc n contains a single Page 1; however,each Page 1 comprises a different page of the transmitted facsimile.Thus, Doc 1/Page 1 is associated with Page 1 of the facsimiletransmission, Doc 2/Page 1 is associated with Page 2 of the facsimiletransmission, Doc 3/Page 1 is Page 3 of the facsimile transmission andso forth.

Referring now back to FIG. 5, a user 520 to whom faxes have been sentmay access the individual pages of the fax document stored within themedia storage 516 through the fax application 514. The user 520communicates with the fax application 514 over a data network such asthe Internet. The user 520 requests that access to the currentlyavailable pages of the facsimile transmission within the media storage516 be provided to the user after some type of standard authenticationprocess. The fax application 514 determines the location of the fax byaccessing the media records 532 that point to the location of thefacsimile document and its associated pages within the media storage516. The user 520 may view any page of the facsimile transmission thathas been downloaded to the media storage 516.

Referring now to FIG. 8, when the fax application 514 receives one ofthe fax status indications such as Fax Incoming (Page1) 804 indicatingthe first page of the facsimile transmission or Fax Progress (Page0) 812indicating the completion of the facsimile transmission, the faxapplication 514 may send an alert message to the user 520 responsive tothese indications. In the case of a Fax Incoming (Page1) 804 indication,the user 520 is provided with an alert message indicating that a firstpage of a fax transmission is available. In the case of a Fax Progress(Page0) 812 indication, the user 520 is provided with an alert messageindicating that transmission of the fax has been completed. The use ofthe alerts and the ability to access individual fax pages while theentire fax is still being received enables the user 520 to more quicklyaccess the early pages of the fax, which can be of great benefit whenbusiness or medical decisions must be made by the user 520 in arelatively quick manner.

Referring now to FIG. 10, there is illustrated a flow diagram describingthe operation of the facsimile delivery system with respect to the faxserver 506 and fax controller 510 portions of the system. Initially, thefax server 506 answers the incoming fax call at step 1002 and receiveseach page at step 1004. The fax server 506 stores each fax page in amultipage fax file within the fax file storage 508 at step 1006. Foreach page stored in the fax file, the fax server 506 sends a page eventnotification to the fax controller 510 at step 1008. Inquiry step 1010determines whether the fax transmission is complete. If not complete,control passes to step 1004 where the fax server 506 receives the nextpage of the facsimile transmission. This process continues until theentire fax has been received. When inquiry step 1010 determines that thefacsimile transmission is complete, control passes to step 1012, wherethe fax server 506 generates and transmits the fax complete signal tothe fax controller 510.

Referring now to FIG. 11, there is illustrated a flow diagram describingthe operation of the fax controller 510 portion of the system. For eachpage in an inbound facsimile transmission, the fax controller 510receives a page event 602 from the fax server 506 at step 1102. The faxcontroller 510 accesses the multipage fax file 706 associated with theinbound facsimile transmission, extracts the page associated with thepage event at step 1104 and creates a new page file 710 at step 1106.Finally, the fax controller 510 sends a page complete notification tothe fax application 514 at step 1108. Referring now also to FIG. 12,there is illustrated a flow diagram describing the operation of the faxcontroller 510, as it pertains to the fax complete event 604 from thefax server 506. At the end of each facsimile transmission, the faxcontroller 510 receives a fax complete event 604 from the fax server 506at step 1202. Upon receiving the fax complete event, the fax controller510 sends a fax complete notification 610 to the fax application 514 atstep 1204.

Referring now to FIG. 13, there is illustrated the page file creation606 functionality of the fax controller 510. Upon receiving a page event602 from the fax server 506, the fax controller 510 accesses themultipage fax file 706 within the fax file storage 508 and extracts onepage (the page associated with the page event 602) and creates a newpage file 710 within the page file storage 512.

Referring now to FIG. 14, there is illustrated a flow diagram describingthe operation of the fax application 514 portion of the system. The faxapplication 514 comprises various functionalities needed to receive andto display the pages of a fax stored within the media storage 516 to auser 520. The fax application 514 receives a page complete notificationfrom the fax controller 510 at step 1402, indicating that a first orsubsequent page of a fax has been received at the fax server 506.Responsive to the page complete notification, the fax applicationcreates a message record 530 at step 1404 within the applicationdatabase 518 if the page complete notification is associated with thefirst page of the fax. This message record 530 represents an entire faxand is associated with all of the pages of the fax. The fax application514 downloads the page file that is associated with the page completenotification. The fax application 514 downloads the page file from thepage file storage 512 at step 1406 and stores it within the mediastorage 516. The fax application 514 renders the page at step 1408 intoa format suitable for display to the user 520 and stores the renderedimage file within the media storage 516 at step 1410. The faxapplication 514 creates a media record 532 at step 1412 for the page ofthe facsimile transmission that is associated with the page completenotification and stores the media record 532 within the applicationdatabase 518. If the page complete notification is associated with thefirst page of the fax, the fax application 514 sends an alert message tothe user 520 at step 1414. This alert indicates to the user 520 that anew fax is arriving. In alternative embodiments, the fax application 514may also notify the user 520 of the receipt of any particular pagenumber or page numbers of the fax transmission and the ability of theuser to access each of the fax transmission pages up to the pageindicated by the notification provided by the fax application.

Referring now to FIG. 15, there is illustrated a flow diagram describingthe operation of the fax application 514 portion of the system, as itpertains to the fax complete notification. The fax application 514receives a fax complete notification from the fax controller 510 at step1502, indicating that a facsimile transmission at the fax server 506 hascompleted. Responsive to the fax complete notification, the faxapplication 514 updates the message status in the message record 530within the application database 518 at step 1504. Finally, the faxapplication 514 sends an alert message to the user 520 at step 1506,indicating that the facsimile transmission is complete.

Referring now to FIG. 16, there is illustrated an alternative embodimentwherein the fax controller 510 creates the individual page files thatare stored within the page file storage 512 responsive to adetermination of an end of fax page by analyzing the contents of the faxfile within the fax file storage 508 rather than responsive to the pageevent indication provided by the fax server 506. In this case, the faxcontroller 510 goes through a process 1608 that searches for the end ofpage indicator within the fax file 1602 stored within the fax filestorage 508, extracts the page and saves it to the page file 1606 withinthe page file storage 512. The end of page indication may be identifiedin any number of fashions within the fax file including a particularindication at the end of each fax page or an indication at the beginningof a subsequent fax page. Therefore, rather than extracting a singlepage file from the fax file stored within the fax file storage 508 uponreceipt of a page event indication from the fax server 506, the faxcontroller 510 searches the coding within the fax file for this type ofindication, independently determines when a page has ended and initiatesthe extraction and storage of the page file associated with the fax filestored within the fax file storage 508, before each page file isdownloaded by the fax application 514. It will be appreciated by oneskilled in the art that a variety of other techniques may be utilizedfor detecting the ends of pages within a fax file that provide theactuation of creation of the individual page files.

Utilizing the above system and method, a fax recipient will have a muchearlier opportunity to view the initial pages of a fax transmission. Thefax recipient will be able to review each page of the fax document assoon as it is received rather than waiting until the entire document hasbeen delivered. In situations where a fax is being transmitted tomultiple competing fax recipients and a decision must be made by eachfax recipient and a response must be returned to the fax sender within arelatively short period of time, the fax recipient has the ability toview the relevant information within a transmitted fax at the earliestopportunity and quickly respond, which provides a great benefit overother fax recipients who must wait until the entire fax has beenreceived.

It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art having the benefit ofthis disclosure that this system and method for delivering faxes to arecipient on a page by page basis allows fax recipients to more quicklyview initial pages of a fax without waiting for receipt of the entirefax. It should be understood that the drawings and detailed descriptionsherein are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictivemanner, and are not intended to be limiting to the particular forms andexamples disclosed. On the contrary, included are any furthermodifications, changes, rearrangements, substitutions, alternatives,design choices, and embodiments apparent to those of ordinary skill inthe art, without departing from the spirit and scope hereof, as definedby the following claims. Thus, it is intended that the following claimsbe interpreted to embrace all such further modifications, changes,rearrangements, substitutions, alternatives, design choices, andembodiments.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for delivering a fax to a fax recipient,comprising: receiving a multipage fax file at a fax server; providing acorresponding page file during receipt of the multipage fax file foreach page of the multipage fax file that is accessible apart from themultipage fax file while the multipage fax file is being received;storing the provided corresponding page file for each page of themultipage fax file while the multipage fax file is being received;generating a page complete notification upon completion of provision ofeach page of the multipage fax file into the corresponding page file;and enabling access to the corresponding page file associated with themultipage fax file by the fax recipient responsive to receipt of thepage complete notification associated with the corresponding page file,wherein access to the corresponding page file is enabled whilesubsequent pages of the multipage fax file are being received at the faxserver.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of providing thecorresponding page file further comprises extracting portions of themultipage fax file associated with individual pages of the multipage faxfile responsive to the page complete notification.
 3. The method ofclaim 2, wherein the step of storing further comprises storing theextracted portions as the corresponding page file associated with theindividual pages of the multipage fax file.
 4. The method of claim 1,wherein the step of enabling access further comprises: receiving thepage complete notification at a fax application, the fax applicationcomprising at least one fax application server; creating a messagerecord that represents the fax associated with the multipage fax file;downloading the corresponding page file associated with the pagecomplete notification, using the at least one fax application server;rendering the corresponding page file into an image file for display,using the at least one fax application server; storing the image file ata storage location associated with the at least one fax applicationserver; and generating a media record indicating the storage location ofthe image file.
 5. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step ofgenerating a page event notification for each fax page received of themultipage fax file at the fax server while the multipage fax file isbeing received.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the step of providingfurther comprises providing a corresponding page file responsive to thepage event notification.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step ofproviding the corresponding page file further comprises generating thecorresponding page file from portions of the multipage fax fileassociated with individual pages of the multipage fax file responsive tothe page complete notification.
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein thestep of storing further comprises storing the generated correspondingpage file associated with the individual pages of the multipage faxfile.
 9. A method for delivering a fax to a fax recipient, comprising:receiving a multipage fax file transmitted to a fax server; extractingpage files during receipt of the multipage fax file for each page of themultipage fax file that is accessible apart from the multipage fax filewhile the multipage fax file is being received; storing the extractedpage files associated with individual pages of the multipage fax file;generating a page complete notification upon completion of storing ofeach extracted page file; and enabling access to the extracted page fileassociated with the individual pages of the multipage fax file by thefax recipient responsive to receipt of the page complete notificationassociated with the extracted page file, wherein access to the extractedpage file is enabled while subsequent pages of the multipage fax fileare being received at the fax server.
 10. The method of claim 9 furthercomprising the step of generating a page event notification for each faxpage received of the multipage fax file at the fax server while themultipage fax file is being received.
 11. The method of claim 10,wherein the step of providing further comprises providing acorresponding page file responsive to the page event notification.
 12. Asystem for delivering a fax to a fax recipient, comprising: a fax serverfor receiving a multipage fax file associated with an entire multipagefax transmission to be delivered; a fax controller associated with thefax server, wherein the fax controller: accesses each page of themultipage fax file while the multipage fax file is being received;provides a corresponding page file during receipt of the multipage faxfile for each page of the multipage fax file that is accessible apartfrom the multipage fax file while the multipage fax file is beingreceived; stores the provided corresponding page file for each page ofthe multipage fax file while the multipage fax file is being received;generates a page complete notification upon completion of provision ofeach page of the multipage fax file into the corresponding page file;and a fax application associated with the fax controller enabling accessto the corresponding page file associated with the multipage fax file bythe fax recipient responsive to receipt of the page completenotification associated with the corresponding page file, wherein accessto the corresponding page file is enabled while subsequent pages of themultipage fax file are being received at the fax server.
 13. The systemof claim 12, wherein the fax server further: extracts portions of themultipage fax file associated with individual pages of a multipage faxfile fie responsive to the page complete notification; and stores theextracted portions as the corresponding page file associated with theindividual pages of the multipage fax file.
 14. The system of claim 12,wherein the fax controller further controls operation of the fax serverto generate a fax complete notification upon completion of the multipagefax transmission.
 15. The system of claim 12, further comprising: a faxapplication for: receiving the page complete notification; anddownloading the corresponding page file associated with the pagecomplete notification; and rendering the corresponding page file into animage file for display; wherein the fax application further stores theimage file; and wherein the fax application further generates a mediarecord indicating a storage location of the image file.
 16. The systemof claim 12, wherein the fax server generates a page event notificationfor each fax page received of the multipage fax file at the fax serverwhile the multipage fax file is being received.
 17. The system of claim16, wherein the fax controller accesses each page of the multipage faxfile while the multipage fax file is being received responsive to thepage event notification.
 18. The system of claim 12, wherein the faxapplication may further be implemented within at least one server. 19.The system of claim 12, wherein the fax controller further: generatesthe corresponding page file from portions of the multipage fax fileassociated with individual pages of the multipage fax file responsive tothe page complete notification; and stores the generated correspondingpage file associated with the individual pages of the multipage faxtransmission.
 20. A method for delivering a fax to a fax recipient,comprising: receiving a multipage fax file transmitted to a fax server;generating page files during receipt of the multipage fax file for eachpage of the multipage fax file that is accessible apart from themultipage fax file while the multipage fax file is being received;storing the generated page files associated with individual pages of themultipage fax file; generating a page complete notification uponcompletion of storing of each generated page file; and enabling accessto the generated page files associated with the individual pages of themultipage fax file by the fax recipient responsive to receipt of thepage complete notification associated with the generated page files,wherein access to the generated page files is enabled while subsequentpages of the multipage fax file are being received at the fax server.